The war which is coming Is not the first one. There were Other wars before it. When the last one came to an end There were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people Starved. Among the conquerors The common people starved too.

Bertolt Brecht
About This Quote

In The War which is coming, the speaker attempts to teach his child about the world. He starts by explaining the differences between war and peace. Then, he tells how war has been going on since time immemorial. When the speaker was a child, he lived in a peaceful time.

However, when he grew older, he saw that war was still going on even though it was not as prevalent as it is today. Things have changed a lot since then. People have lost their homes and have been taken away from their loved ones.

In fact, people are killed, maimed or injured because of wars and other conflicts. In the second part of the poem, the speaker describes how people from both sides of a conflict can be hurt. He says that both the conquerors and conquered suffer from hunger during the war.

How terrible! The speaker ends with a quote from a famous Russian writer who said that in every war there is a great burden on human beings. This poem teaches children how to live in peace taking into account what has happened in the past and how it will affect them in the future.

Source: Poems 19131956

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